In recent years, the LAN (Local Area Network) and WAN (Wide Area Network) are spreading in the fields of workstation and personal computer. In association with such a widespread, a print server such that a plurality of workstations, personal computers, or word processors (hereinafter, they are generally referred to as clients or terminal apparatuses) can share a printer is becoming important in order to reduce the purchasing costs and installation area.
As shown in FIG. 2, for instance, a conventional printing system includes: a client 1 (11), a client 2 (12), and a client 3 (13); a printer 1 (17) and a printer 3 (19) which can be shared by those clients; and a printer/spooler control server 1 (15) and a printer/spooler control server 2 (16) for sharing and controlling those printers.
The printing is executed in the foregoing construction by the following procedure.
(1) The clients 11 to 13 transmit document data indicative of the printing contents of documents to the printer/spooler control server 15 through a network 10 in order to request the printer/spooler control server 15 to print. The document data comprises a printing command train for describing the printing contents of characters, figures, and images with respect to each page of the documents.
(2) The print server 15 which received the document data from the clients 11 to 13 executes the following processes.
(a) First, the print server 15 once stores the document data to a file called a spooler in the print server 15. PA1 (b) The print server 15 reads out the stored document data and transmits to the printer 1 (17) and instructs the printing. PA1 (c) The printer 1 (17) processes the received document data and executes the printing to a paper. PA1 printer error detecting means, printer error watching means, and printer error recovery waiting/release control means are provided for the printer/spooler control server; PA1 error recovery request means to the printer/spooler control server is provided for the terminal equipment; and PA1 when the occurrence of a printer error is detected by the printer error detecting means, the printer/spooler control server shifts the printer/spooler control server into a printer error recovery waiting state by using the printer error recovery waiting/release control means and, after that, starts the printer error watching means, and in the case where both of PA1 are satisfied, the printer error recovery waiting state of the printer/spooler control server is released and the printing by the printer/spooler control server is restarted. A reporting unit of the detailed printer status in the printer reports the occurrence of the error in the network printer to a receiving unit of the detailed printer status in the printer/spooler control server. PA1 when the printer error detecting means detects the occurrence of an error with reprinting such as a paper jam or the like with regard to a certain print job, the printer/spooler control server receives an error occurred page serial number as a serial number from the print job head to the error occurred page from the printer; PA1 the terminal equipment receives the kind of error such as a paper jam or the like and the error occurred page serial number as detailed error contents with respect to the print job from the printer/spooler control server; and PA1 in the error recovery request from the terminal equipment to the printer/spooler control server, a reprint start page of the print job can be instructed as either one of the print job head, the specified page, and the error occurred page detected by the printer. PA1 in the case where the printer error detecting means detects the occurrence of an error with reprinting such as a page jam or the like with respect to a certain print job, PA1 the terminal equipment receives the kind of error such as a paper jam or the like as detailed error contents regarding the print job from the printer/spooler control server; and PA1 in the error recovery request from the terminal equipment to the printer/spooler control server, the reprint start page of the print job can be instructed as either one of the print job head, the specified page, and the error occurred page detected by the printer. PA1 when the printer/spooler control server retransmits the print job, the print job is edited to a new print job comprising print data after the reprint start page and the new print job to be edited is retransmitted. Such an edition is called a page extracting edition hereinafter. PA1 the printer/spooler control server transmits the reprint start page and the original print job itself which starts from the head page to the printer; and PA1 the printer receives the foregoing transmission contents and reprints with respect to only the pages after the reprint start page. Although the page extracting edition has been performed by the printer/spooler control server in the fifth printing system, it is executed by the printer in the sixth printing system. PA1 after the printer/spooler control server was released from the printer error recovery waiting state, it indicates the reprint start page to the printer; and PA1 the printer reprints the print job with respect to only the pages after the indicated reprint start page by using the refuged print data in the printer with regard to the print job. PA1 the system includes a distributed printing management server for managing all of the printers and printer/spooler control servers on the network; PA1 the distributed printing management server watches the specifications and statuses of each printer/spooler control server and each printer and registers the results of the watching into a table called a printer/spooler control server configuration management table; PA1 the terminal equipment generates document print specifications regarding a document and the printing in association with the designation of the first priority printer to the distributed printing management server; PA1 the distributed printing management server which received the print request judges that the first priority printer has an error on the basis of the printer configuration management table, selects a set of the printer having the printer print specifications adequate to the document print specifications and the printer/spooler control server to control the printer, and notifies a fact that the first priority printer has the error and the selection result to the terminal equipment; PA1 the terminal equipment which received the notification and the user of the terminal equipment select the printer adequate to the document print specifications on the basis of the notification; PA1 the terminal instructs the selected printer/spooler control server to print by the selected printer; and PA1 the printer/spooler control server which received the instruction stores the print job into the spooler in accordance with the print instruction and outputs each print job in the spooler to the selected printer. PA1 printer error detecting means and printer error recovery waiting/release control means are provided for the printer/spooler control server; PA1 instructing means of an error recovery using an alternative printer to the printer/spooler control server is provided for the terminal equipment; PA1 when the occurrence of a fatal error in the printer is detected by the printer error detecting means, the printer/spooler control server PA1 the terminal equipment requests the error recovery using the name of the alternative printer as an input parameter to the printer/spooler control server; and PA1 the printer/spooler control server shifts the print job to the spooler for the name of the alternative printer instructed by the terminal equipment in accordance with the error recovery request from the terminal equipment and, after that, the print job is printed by the alternative printer. PA1 a distributed printing management server for managing a configuration of all of the printers on a network is added and alternative candidate printer detecting means is provided for the terminal equipment; PA1 in the case where the terminal equipment knows the occurrence of a fatal error of the printer regarding a certain print job, PA1 the alternative candidate printer detecting means receives stored logical specifications regarding the print job and requests the distributed printing management server to search the printers adequate to the logical specifications; PA1 the distributed printing management server returns the alternative candidate printers adequate to the inputted logical specifications to the terminal equipment; and PA1 the terminal equipment decides the alternative candidate printers on the basis of the returned alternative candidate printers. PA1 a receiving unit of a detailed printer status from the network printer and a printer error recovery requesting unit for stop, restart, cancellation, or the like to the network printer are provided for the printer/spooler control server, and an informing unit of the detailed printer status to the printer/spooler control server and a receiving & executing unit of a printer error recovery request from the printer/spooler control server are provided for the network printer. PA1 in response to the instruction of the print control from the terminal equipment or the report of the error status from the network printer to the printer/spooler control server, the printer/spooler control server instructs the network printer to execute the printer error recovery. PA1 the system includes a distributed printing management server for managing all of the printers and printer/spooler control servers on the network; PA1 the distributed printing management server watches the specifications and statuses of each printer/spooler control server and each printer and registers the watching results into a table called a printer configuration management table and the terminal equipment generates the printing with specifying of document print specifications regarding a document to the distributed printing management server; PA1 the distributed printing management server which received the printing request selects a set of the printer having the printer print specifications adequate to the document print specifications and the printer/spooler control server to control the printer on the basis of the printer configuration management table and notifies the selection result to the terminal equipment; PA1 the printer/spooler control server which received the instruction stores the print jobs into the spooler in accordance with the printing instruction and outputs each print job in the spooler to the selected printer. PA1 the printer/spooler control server manages a detailed status of each print job such as print waiting, during the printing, error occurrence, error detailed information, or the like; and PA1 the printer/spooler control server responds the detailed information of the print job to the terminal equipment in response to a query request of the print job detailed status from the terminal equipment to the printer/spooler control server. PA1 the printer/spooler control server manages the history of the print job with respect to each user; and PA1 the printer/spooler control server responds the history of the print job regarding the user to the terminal equipment in response to the query request of the history of the print job with regard to each user from the terminal equipment to the printer/spooler control server.
The foregoing conventional techniques have been disclosed in, for example, JP-A-62-274331, JP-A-63-75828, JP-A-63-99644, JP-A-63-250730, JP-A-4-230514, JP-A-4-245525, and JP-A-4-250522.
However, since a report from the printer to the print server and a report from the print server to the client are inadequate, there is a problem such that in the case where an error occurs in the printer, the user needs to go to the location of the printer and to examine the detailed error contents of the printer and a burden on the user is large. Particularly, in the case where a paper jam error occurs in the printer, since a reporting function of fault information from the printer to the client is insufficient, the user of the client cannot know a process to the printer and needs to go to the location of the printer and to examine the above necessary procedure and to execute a procedure such as removal of the jammed paper or the like.
After the procedure such as removal of the jammed paper or the like was finished, the user of the client needs to restart an application program on the client and to reprint. It takes a time until the error recovery. Even when an attention is paid to only the reprint, print data constructing a print job is retransmitted from its head from the print server to the printer and is reprinted from the head of the job by the printer, so that there is also a problem such that a vain overlapped reprint occurs and a recovery time is long. Similarly, in the case where a paper empty error occurs in the printer, the user of the client cannot grasp the detailed error contents such as a size of papers to be supplied or the like from the client.
As printer specifications which are used in the printing system, (a) a dot density, (b) a print speed, (c) permission or inhibition of a double side printing or color printing, (d) a size of paper which can be used, (e) a sort of PDL (Page Description Language) which can be used, (f) a sort of font which can be used, and the like are known. There are also various printer specifications. There is a tendency such that the user selectively uses at least a few specifications in accordance with the application field such as word processing, DTP (Desk-Top Publishing), slip output, or the like.
The user of each client, therefore, selects by himself the printer according to the specifications of a document to be printed while adequately considering a set of printers which can be used from the relevant client and the specifications of all of the printers which can be used and instructs the target printer to print such a document. Consequently, a burden on the user to accurately grasp the specifications of those printers is very large. There is also a problem such that if the user erroneously grasped the printer specifications, some printer error occurs in the printer which was erroneously selected.
According to the present printing system, the correspondence relation between the printer and the printer/spooler control server to control it cannot be known from an outside appearance. Therefore, there are problems such that when the client requests a certain printer to print, it is difficult to grasp which printer/spooler control server is better to be requested to print, a plurality of printers and print servers cannot be effectively used, and a use efficiency and a reliability are low.
One of the causes of such problems is that the management of the printers of various specifications on the network is insufficient. A method of obtaining the printer specifications by a host computer such as a print server or the like and its problems will now be described.
Hitherto, as for a system for obtaining the printer specifications by the host computer in the printing system, for instance, a system such that a host computer recognizes specification information of printers by printer ID codes has been disclosed as shown in JP-A-2-67168. According to such a system, the printer has the printer ID code in its memory device and the host computer possesses the printer specification information of all of the printers which can be connected to the memory device. The host computer forms the printer specification information by the following procedure.
(1) The printer ID code is received from the printer.
(2) The host computer recognizes the printer specification information corresponding to the received printer ID code.
A technique such that a plurality of printers are connected to a host computer and the switching of printer sort information is performed by a hardware switch has been disclosed in JP-A-5-138994.
According to the above conventional technique disclosed in JP-A-2-67168, there has been described a technique such that a printer sort code is transmitted in response to a request of the host computer to which the printer is connected, and the host computer recognizes the received printer sort code, thereby recognizing the name of maker of the printer corresponding to the printer sort code, code system, name of apparatus, and the like.